


Tales From the Fire: The Glassman

by reallysmallgiantrobot



Category: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Post-Apocalypse, mad max universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 13:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4062118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reallysmallgiantrobot/pseuds/reallysmallgiantrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick genre exercise wherein a drifter talks about a frightful and apparently supernatural would-be peacemaker in the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max.</p>
<p>(Mostly because I realized that both Kuuga and Mad Max have a similar idea about the frightfulness of violence and realized that I love the idea of post-apocalyptic Kamen Riders and also that in my head, any time Godai or Max have to violence their way out of a situation, it generally doesn't go well for anyone in the long term)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tales From the Fire: The Glassman

The wordburgers vox about the Glassman, the Max Rockatansky from forever away.  They say he’s immortan, riding a flaming bug through the waste, practically perfect in every way and immune to the growths.  He’s the Max who never gets ill, who always fights for justice, the Max who lives longest.

Always some new warlord want a piece of the Glassman.  Maybe for magazine, maybe ‘cause Glassman always has the best spots where it’s warm in the darkest nights, maybe ‘cause what Glassman wants for his people, he keeps.

It’s the same thing gets him every time, the wordburgers say.  Glassman meets some strugglers, turns Max for ‘em against the warlords, headhunters and gas-guzzlers.  Tries to contract with ‘em, get the guns their pinkslips, make fighters into farmers, make ‘em part of his town.

Works sometimes.

Eventually it don’t.

Then he gotta fight’em and he lets the devil out.  It’s all smoke and fire and screaming and the bandits hands-up or ride screaming into the wastes and they say the Glassman cries and cries and cries and his tears go up in smoke like all the bandits what weren’t smart enough to hands-up.

In time it always happens, tho.

In time, warlord gets tired of this big city he can’t have.  Gets tired of Glassman playing Max Rockatansky, saying the warlord can’t get his due, saying the warlord’s guns ain’t good, saying the warlord’s stratoplans ain’t good, saying the warlord should dig for water and try to make greengro like some scrabbler, saying he should be Mr. Thumbs-Up like the Glassman.

Eventually warlord gets tired, rounds up a few of the other warlords who want some of that wet and that green and that metal.  Eventually warlord sends an army instead of a platoon, sends a seej.

Glassman meets ‘em but there’s only so much he can do.  The devil in him goes wilder and burns hotter and hotter and it’s the Burn all over again, straight outta hell through the Glassman’s mouth and there ain’t no army but there ain’t no nothin’ else, neither.

Just the Glassman on a field of glass what used to be sand.

Wordburgers say Glassman, he’s just a myth, just like every other Max.  Say there ain’t no way there’s a real Immortan from cross the old wet.  Ain’t no way there’s such a thing as a devil from hell with glowy red eyes that sometimes go black.  Wordburgers say a lotta shit.

But I seen the sootsmears in the sandglass out there in the waste when I was scavenging.  And I seen the rider with the mask on his burning bike hauling ass away from it.

I dunno if he’s going somewhere or just going away from the glass.

But all I know is you find a town that’s too lucky?  With a Max workin’ too well?

You run, kid.  You get what you need and you find somewhere else.

The Glassman’s real.  He means the best.  They say he got a heart fulla love for everything that walks or crawls, that he don’t take part in any McFeastin’, that he knows so much about the old world and its wonders.  They say he’s the kindest that there ever was and I don’t doubt it.  Only a man with a broken heart rides like that.

But when most Max fail, you just lose all your wet, all your greengro, all your steel.

Glassman fails, there’s only glass left.

You watch yourself now.  Don’t get too big, don’t get too proud. 

Always some wannabe murderist gonna take from you or try to protect you.

And you just can’t trust someone who believes in something more than they believe in stayin’ alive.


End file.
